STATE OF DECAY

A GROUP SHOW CURATED BY HELEN HUGHES & HARRIET MORGAN
CHAPMAN AND BAILEY GALLERY


ALEX VIVIAN. MARCO FUSINATO. MARK GROVES. CHRISTOPHER LG HILL. JOHN NIXON. BLAKE HESKETH. LUKE HOLLAND. HARRIET MORGAN. STEWART COLE. TOM MILLER.

REFLECTIVE WRITTEN RESPONSES FROM
HELEN HUGHES. HARRIET MORGAN. CHRISTOPHER LG HILL. SIMON TAYLOR.

STATE OF DECAY looks at the literal and metaphoric concept of deterioration within life and imagery. The ever-impending feeling of both existing and ending, and the effect we have on the all the elements that go together to make the world we live in. The artists involved all differently communicate this aesthetic or ideology, displaying their thoughts on decomposition, mortality, decay and adverse experimentation within their visual and audio practices, whilst also simultaneously communicating how a human might feel, operating on a day-to-day basis- within this decaying and rotting earth.

STATE OF DECAY embodies the conscious & unconscious impact of living, the outcome of death, the emotional mindset associated with it all & the visual effects that fading, ageing, rotting, wear, time or hand can have on an image and the mind.

STATE OF DECAY

RECENT WORK FROM LOST DOGS' FUNDRAISER SHOW BY HARRIET K MORGAN

HARRIET KATE MORGAN AT TCB :

KILLED BY DEATH

KATHERINE HATTAM (MY MUM), WRITTEN FOR HER CATALOGUE ABOUT RECENT SHOW INVENTORY

DESIRE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE

In choosing to represent something, you become a part of it, even after the fact of re-presentation. To depict something from life is to positively obsess. Katherine Hattam reflects the want and confusion in life that so many people as artists choose to repress. She includes the minutiae that many exclude to communicate a point and in doing so shows a sense of a life having been lived, marks having been practised repeatedly for years - as well as an exacting compositional schedule.

For those pre-disposed to any mania, anxiety, or just obsessive qualities be they good or bad, Hattam's paintings should appear like a normal projection of thought/thoughts at any given time, just like making a list. As her daughter, I can see her desires so clearly as we operate similarly on many differing levels. I see something and it inspires me and I wish I had been its creator. For instance, I wish i had been Ozzy Osbourne from Black Sabbath in the seventies, who thought it might be a good idea to make scary music, now known more definitively as the genre Metal, but in this day and age it's harder to be an absolute creator. There's always so much that comes before you and what you do have left after being exposed to so much - choice, a myriad of choice.

Hattam has chosen to be a mother and a dedicated artist and nothing has or will come between these two things. Family is an overriding feature to someones' life and has absolutely everything to do with how they operate. Hattam's work can not escape the concept of family as this is a central obsession and always will be. She transfers the everyday into something worth being depicted as if you are a visitor in the Thornbury house. It's her unstoppable need to draw, to put pen to paper or to just do something that has kept her art as her profession since she was a young girl.

As family friend and artist Alex Vivian would say, I love how you're Mum just does stuff. She doesn't talk about it, she just does it and that has inspired me to stop talking and just do...

My friends involved in art comment to me constantly comment, 'saw your mum last night at this exhibition and then she was going to another'. Her dedication to art and all it embodies is exactly what her work is about. Here, her desire turns into the actual. She has captured her obsession and anchored it so that her heavy consideration and thought can rest and then perhaps mean something later. Her ideas formalise and come together out of trial and error, looking and constant experimentation. this combined with her constant hunger to achieve what she wants from art. It proves that there's something to be said for being a generational artist who relates and looks at what those younger than her are doing as there is a irreplaceable freshness to be found in their visual language. Looking and doing as two modes typical to her process has made the paintings sustain their original idea and then progress towards wholeness.

My friend commented on the fact that Rock'n Roll and Metal, are mens' worlds. This is particularly hard to swallow when you are a woman and you want to play metal, like myself. Through perseverance though, this becomes a non-reality for any woman in a musical genre such as metal i.e if you don't go away then people eventually have to take notice. This is not to degrade the position of a female within anything that's predominantly a mans' world, such as art or music at any particular time in history and this as an idea could easily be argued against. As a female though, it's as undeniable as anything displacing is to any kind of minority. Things have changed dramatically within art and literature but career-wise, Hattam, being a young female-artist in her time, faced a similar and deterring mood.

This mood no-longer exists today in contemporary art but it wasn't always as inclusive by any means. Instead of accepting defeat, Hattam looked to something more relevant, such as what young people think and how they see things. In doing so, her work has benefitted in ways indescribable and she has be come a more confident and brilliant artist from pure and sheer determination- null and void of any complacency. This is why her work is so intense and absolutely her own.

In Inventory all of these things within Hattam's life come together to represent desire in life and how to express and attain it. The reoccurring imagery from past paintings, hair and paint brushes, Rodchenko's tea-pot and scissors still remain as reminders of what it is to be her on a day-to-day basis or familiarity. The new inclusions, family pets, Jon Campbells' and Sidney Nolan's paintings and her sisters' Brooklyn windows all push through and take-over to include new desire over old. Thoughts replace thoughts and ideas emerge without the artist consciously knowing how they got there. It's inexplainable as much as it is literal and it's basically just life encapsulated in a visual language representing mood, change and drive.

http://katherinehattam.com/

artprogram

Gertrude Contemporary Art

Spaces and Art & Australia

Emerging Writers Program

Harriet Morgan

UNITY, STRENGTH AND PRIDE run through the work and ideologies of the Brisbane-based proppaNOW collective. In their recent drawing exhibition, ‘Jus’ Drawn’, Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Bianca Beetson, Richard Bell, Andrea Fisher, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey and Laurie Nilsen continued the urgent discussion of what it means to be a contemporary, urban Aboriginal artist. When exhibiting individually, these artists have their own established methods, styles and positions within the Australian art world. But as proppaNOW, they collaborate and work with different materials to characterise a challenging new Aboriginal voice within contemporary art.

In ‘Jus’ Drawn’ as with any group show, especially one focused on a specific medium, the levels of success were bound to vary. This, however, didn’t appear to be proppaNOW’s greatest concern. The central ideas in ‘Jus’ Drawn’ were communicated with an inherent ease. Even if the immediate look of the show appeared ordered, linear and consistent, with a stark placement of work, any seriousness was undercut by the comedic and playful elements of the group – most notably with Hookey’s 2010 ‘Animals’ series, and Bell’s colourful and collaborative wall piece which connected two of the rooms at Linden – a location not usually associated with Indigenous heritage.

The closeness and positive values of the collective certainly shone through. As well as a stimulating and shared practice employing materials such as paper, graphite, ink and charcoal, even the exhibition’s title, ‘Jus’ Drawn’ echoed an easy and natural communication between the artists. As Ah Kee explained in an artists statement:

Drawing is something that we do. As Aboriginal people, as Blackfellas, drawing is something we all do …

Intuition and spontaneity were evident in the artists’ mark-making, though some marks in the show seemed to have been rehearsed more than others. In her 2010 suite of work ‘On Dying’, Herd transformed unimaginable grief into calming and natural forms. The drawings were made with an underlying but powerful sense of what it is like to experience death. In so doing the work propelled a purely ‘cultural’ dialect into a broader language – one of a mother, an artist and a human.

Hookey’s work operated on the other end of the emotional spectrum, depicting typically un-Australian animals such as the beaver or donkey by using thick and heavy cross-hatching, playfully reinstating the animals’ distance from any sort of typical Indigenous iconography. From this room the mood rapidly changed again, the strokes lightening, as Ah Kee’s precision stood out. The artist’s considered and confident markings were comparatively cooler and less humorous. A skilled draughtsman, Ah Kee’s drawings transcended race, with method as much as meaning determining the final outcome.

As well as togetherness, ‘Jus’ Drawn’ suggested an ongoing identity crisis. Connecting the group was a strong sense of double displacement – as artists and as Aboriginal people – which was where the show became paradoxical. Yes this was a collective show of a group of practising contemporary artists, but it was also about their individual Aboriginality. This central paradox was of course part of proppaNOW’s quest: to create a more accurate view of how complicated contemporary Aboriginal art has actually become.

Through a base exercise in drawing, proppaNOW reflected on what it is to be of Aboriginal heritage, but by eschewing a singular approach, the group brought mixed feelings about their people’s displacement to the surface. Choosing contrary ideas of location, medium and subject, the collective managed to dispute any absolute definition of Aboriginality within contemporary art.

Harriet Morgan was mentored by Dr Christopher McAuliffe, Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne; Jus’ Drawn by proppaNOW, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne, 7 August – 12 September 2010.

http://proppanow.com/

RECENT WRITINGS BY HARRIET KATE MORGAN

CATALOGUE PIECE FOR DAMP'S BOOK OF SHADOWS @ GERTRUDE CONTEMPORARY

REMEMBER THE PAST AND REVEL IN THE FUTURE

DAMP has re-represented the sacred Book(s) of Shadows seen in the popular long-running television show- Charmed. In the show, there are three witch sisters, who all use their own Book of Shadows as a source of ritual, magical practices and the ethics and philosophy surrounding witchcraft. As on television, DAMP’s books hold together the essence of the collectives’ every virtue and belief, whilst celebrating the very tangible proof that things have been shared and discussed at a point in time, as well as over a longer period. Most importantly, DAMP proves that there is undeniable significance in (even imagined) beliefs, and that they can take a group, such as DAMP, or yourself- anywhere. Here, in their Book of Shadows, DAMP makes dreams more believable, whilst at the same time, takes celebrating them seriously.

These books appear to be designed more for commemoration than curse or spell. The contents symbolize everything the DAMP collective has thought, dreamed of or imagined, tracing back to when they first began five years ago, which in itself, is a milestone. The weight and look of the books themselves represents the commitment of contribution and the reality that DAMP has existed through many changing times.

Members of DAMP have changed along the way and people have come and gone. These books make sure to record the movements of members and their ideas so as to elucidate everyone’s thoughts at any given time. The overall anonymity within the books takes the emphasis away from the importance of the idea of an artist’s individual authorship, which is something so awfully central and fundamental to being an artist generally. Under this chosen anonymity, the artists’ thoughts subsequently take on independent group meaning, allowing the books’ pages flow on together in an unformalised yet with an undeniable and unspoken unity.

The books function as powerful tools that allow dreams of possible trajectories and movements to evolve and exist in a form that differs from the actual. The books’ physical importance can be seen immediately in the very objects themselves. They look as though they belong only in certain hands and appear actually larger than life. Held upon DAMP-made lecterns and a detailed hand-painted rug, the books further materialize as the literal, fantastical and creative records of DAMP’s history. The setting helps to further the hope that the books might open suddenly and the pages turn themselves. They speak of past, present and future and most importantly, are yet to be completely filled. They are the beginning of DAMP’s unspoken and unseen history and although every page is different, an underlying union can be seen, felt and recognised.

As humans, we often forget the importance of acknowledging not only the strength that a group embodies but we also tend to overlook the underrated importance of making sure to represent and announce the possibilities we may be able to achieve when together. DAMP work together, in order to make work together. This involves meetings and many differing conversations between members and the books tell the tale of this longitudinal relationship. In a group ideas can be lost, and quickly at that. Here, DAMP has recorded as many of their ideas as possible for viewers to look at and touch- at their chosen leisure, so that they can ignite as much imaginination within the audience as possible. The fact that there are still pages to be filled, demonstrates an unstated and almost unwritten continuity- of production, as well as DAMP itself. It’s possible that they will never be filled. It’s an ongoing collective us-story that non-DAMP members couldn’t possibly be sure of, unless they then asked to become directly involved.

DAMP have encapsulated this very idea of the strength of a group memory and in the Book(s) of Shadows, they’ve illuminated it all through drawing, collage and medieval calligraphy among other things. DAMP realises the absolute diversity of their creative mind-pool and so, have chosen to bring to life those ideas that come to them as a flash of intense impossibility. These moments and those of humorous sincerity suddenly become real and subsequently a serious possibility, especially when they’re then put forward to and approved by a group of creative minds.

The Book of Shadows allows something as forever changing as DAMP to evolve without possible regression. For DAMP themselves, the books act as ways to remember rewarding relationships and things shared with people who’ve been involved in whatever way. For us they embody the group as a whole and achieve something that’s more potent than the sum of any group of individuals - unity when beholding it.

KILLED BY DEATH











HARRIET KATE MORGAN

TCB GALLERY

9TH-26TH JUNE

THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED
MARCO FUSINATO
ODETTE FIDELDY
ALEX VIVIAN
JAMES DEUTSHER
MATTHEW BROWN
HELEN HUGHES
SIMON TAYLOR
JUSTIN K FULLER
MARK GROVES
MASATO TAKASAKA
CHRISTOPHER LG HILL
KATHERINE HATTAM
JIM MORGAN
SIMON DENNY
MATT GRIFFIN
TOM MILLER
BLAKE HESKETH
WILL MACKINNON
SEAN BAILEY
JARROD RAWLINS
LUKE HOLLAND
A CONSTRUCTED WORLD

JESS LUCAS & SEAN BAILEY
CURRENTLY AT NEON PARC






APPLYING YOURSELF AND BREAKING DOWN



Every day I have to cleanse in order to manually ‘take off the day’. My cleanser actually has that on it’s bottle as its’ characterising slogan.

Both artists have reached a uniting point similar in meaning here. They both literally capture the process and time spent in applying and removing anything, which is something most of us face habitually on a day-to-day basis. It’s confronting to become aware of your presence and these actions- paint to canvas or even to face, but it also makes you who you are. Some of these processes are so familiar that it seems more ridiculous and confronting to stop them, than to go on proceeding maintaining them.

I put this on and then I feel normal

I have been in situations where I’ve gone around speaking to people all day and then realised at the end of the day that I look like Marge when Homer shoots her with the make-up gun that’s set on whore. In some lights I seem flawless, only to catch my cake-face in some brutal truth-telling mirror out on the town three hours into the evening. My perception of reality totally changes and the thing that was meant to be making me feel “better” makes me feel weird and displaced.
It seems that both artists’ paintings act as similar transformational surfaces, capturing fleeting moments of release. These moments however are then polarised by them into moving and accidental balanced states, like a look-in to an un-blocked equilibrium.

You go to look at a certain point within either artist’s work only to find that you can’t focus amongst the complete matter of paint and detail of their marks. There is something underneath we can’t quite reach that allows you to look at the work not just a flat painted surface but as an idea and aesthetic that’s free enough to celebrate totally but has the weight of being built up over time. The same could be said of those personally defining everyday marks we make. Practice, procedure and re-application often defines us in our world and we hope that enough people perceive the final result how we intended them to initially.

In this case though, it seems as though the artists are aware of this as a-sometimes possibility and an ok impossibility. They are sure about one thing though, and here they have turned it into something staggering, stimulating and skillfully strange- uncertainty in life and being more than ok with that.

Harriet Kate Morgan

THANKS SO MUCH TO GAMBIA CASTLE FOR THEIR HOSPITALITY AND SUPPORT

MORE IMAGES TO COME

CROSS COLOURING

IMAGES FROM NEW ZEALAND - GAMBIA CASTLE

DANIEL MALONE
ROB MCHAFFIE
HARRIET KATE MORGAN
KATE NEWBY
KAIN PICKEN & ROB MCKENZIE

ALEX VIVIAN


JAMES DEUTSHER & JOSH PETHERICK (FLOOR)

CROSS COLOURING AT HELL GALLERY
JOINTHASSLES AND GAMBIA CASTLE